Settlement in German competition case

“We have supported the Federal Cartel Office’s investigations right from the beginning and cooperated fully. Illegal price fixing or any other violation of existing laws profoundly contradict the company's values and guidelines. In accordance with our aim and policy to be compliant as well as our respect of the applicable legislation and to avoid further costs we have agreed to the settlement,” says Henrik Madsen, CEO of HaGe. 

“In the past five years, the company has implemented further internal measures and expanded the compliance system to ensure that existing laws as well as the values and guidelines of the company are complied with. The behavior that was the subject of the investigation by the Federal Cartel Office does not in any way correspond to the company's understanding of compliance and it originated at a time when we were not yet BSL shareholders. Now we can look ahead and finally leave this very unfortunate old case behind us,” says Henrik Madsen.

In BSL pricing has always been and continues to be influenced by a number of different factors. In particular, the international market trend and the highly competitive pressure in the industry as well as product availability meant that individual price agreements were always made at the customer level.

The above is a press release issued by BSL on January 13, 2019. DLG notes:

No one from DLG a.m.b.a. has been involved in the case.

BSL is a 100% subsidiary of HaGe and DLG owns 54.5% of the shares in HaGe. To finance the fine HaGe has initiated a capital increase. For DLG’s part it corresponds to DLG’s ownership percentage. This is expected to have a limited effect on DLG a.m.b.a.’s earnings.